Perspective: Bush's state of union unconvincing

MARIE COCCOSyndicated Columnist

Published Tuesday, February 04, 2003

WASHINGTON -- The state of the union is scared.

Even Norman Schwarzkopf has the jitters. The hero general of the first Persian Gulf War remains unconvinced of the need for a second. Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary who reprises Schwarzkopf's role as wartime media celebrity, raises the general's hackles with his dismissiveness toward Pentagon pros who warn of more Iraqi peril than cocky civilians wish to see.

"It's scary, OK?" Schwarzkopf told The Washington Post.

President George W. Bush's task in his State of the Union speech was to allay the fears not of famous generals, but of millions of Americans who see the likes of generals and presidents only on TV. The prospect of war clouds their horizons. The president did not dispel them. The anemic economy has dimmed their dreams. He offered no different plan to revive them.

The people want their jobs safe. They want their retirement account balances to bounce back somehow, someday. They look for some assurance that the state of the union will be better this year than last. Bush can't give it. He told them instead he will continue to be their warrior.

That is the conundrum of this president. Bush exudes certainty -- prides himself on quick meetings, prompt decisions, black-and-white answers, an inner confidence that his choices are right, and absolutely so.

Last year, the president promised in his State of the Union speech that his economic plan -- making permanent the tax cuts enacted before the terrorists struck -- could be summed up in one word: "Jobs." Since then, hundreds of thousands of private-sector jobs have disappeared, pushing the tally of jobs lost since Bush took office to about 2 million.

This year, this certain president offers the same elixir: more tax cuts that are unlikely, in the view of most economists, to rev things up. "The best, fairest way to make sure Americans have the money is not to tax it in the first place," Bush said.

Last year, Bush said the urgency of the war on terror, of securing the homeland, of economic rejuvenation, would force the federal budget into a deficit he promised would be "small and short term." Next year, his budget experts foresee a record deficit surpassing $300 billion. The president's advisers now say deficits will go on indefinitely -- but that they don't matter.

This is the double-speak that causes so much doubt.

We already tried tax cuts last year to pump up the economy. They failed. We already know that large, long-term deficits matter -- Republicans used to think so, too. We already know that having private insurers run Medicare as a managed-care program doesn't work. Experience shows managed-care Medicare hasn't worked for insurers, nor for doctors, nor for the elderly who often get dumped by plans altogether. It failed.

Still, the president is certain that competition among private insurers is the cure for Medicare. It's the foundation of his plan to revise the health-care program for the aged -- the only way they would get coverage for prescription drugs.

Bush has compiled a record of presidential certainty that crumbles in the face of facts and circumstances he simply will not acknowledge. So you wonder: Why is he so certain about going to war against Iraq when so many others have so many doubts?

Of course, he has secret intelligence. But this president has offered frightening details before -- notably, his claim in October that the United States has evidence Iraq is "reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." The United Nations inspectors report they've found no such evidence and expect to provide "credible assurance" that Iraq has no nuclear weapons program. Bush dismisses that conclusion, saying Saddam Hussein "has not credibly explained" his nuclear activities and "clearly has much to hide."

Other suspicions about Saddam's weapons stockpiles deepened with the inspectors' account. Still, the whole Iraqi problem falls on that gray terrain where Bush does not like to tread. So he avoids it. "The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving," Bush said.

We were scared on Sept. 20, 2001 -- the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldered, the bagpipes wailed at the firefighters' funerals. On that night, Bush went before Congress and became leader of all the people. He addressed a shaken nation with the certainty of a commander who knew just what to do. The country followed willingly, sensing the man had met the moment.

Since then, Bush's own policies and his rhetoric have not rallied the spirit so much as they've raised concern. Sometimes a leader's duty -- his best chance at success -- is to temper his moral certitude. The president seems not to know this.